The Ways One Can Deal with Valentine's Day
by yvie
Summary: A look at the Rikkai Boys on Valentine's Day. Please enjoy!


_Disclaimer: I don't own The Prince of Tennis_

**The Ways One Can Deal with Valentine's Day**

The Rikkai Dai senior boys' tennis club has always been popular. Especially the regulars, they are idols at their school. They get screamed at; they are bombarded with presents; they are even stalked.

Some of them do not mind; some of them hate it; some of them take advantage of it. These different attitudes are all due to their diverse personalities. However, these diverse personalities all have to agree on one thing: Valentine's Day would be better off cancelled.

I could understand I suppose, if one is as popular as they are, what it is like for them on Valentine's Day, especially in a huge school like theirs, with the junior high, the senior high and the university all on the same campus.

Normal popular boys count their chocolates by tens; the Rikkai Dai senior regulars count their chocolates, if they can, by hundreds. After some disastrous years in the junior high, they each came up with their own way of dealing with Valentine's Day.

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Let us start with Marui Bunta.

He loves to eat. I did not miss out any words. He loves to eat, period. He especially enjoys sweet stuff because they give him energy. That is his excuse; the others just think he is a pig when it comes to food.

It was Valentine's Day and he skipped to school with a very light heart and a very light school bag. There was nothing in his school bag except for garbage bags. Why did he bring garbage bags to school? What were they for?

We shall see.

His eyes bright and shining, he shouted a greeting to a girl walking in front of him. The girl turned around and shrieked, "Bunta-kun! Happy Valentine's Day! This is for you."

Bunta grinned at her and took a garbage bag out of his school bag. He put the chocolate the girl gave him into the garbage bag. Then they continued on their journey to school.

On the way, Bunta kept meeting and greeting girls and receiving chocolate. Very soon, the garbage bag that he had initially used was full and he took out another one.

By the time he reached school, he had used up two of his garbage bags to contain the chocolate that he received. He went to his locker to change shoes but before he opened his locker, he took out another garbage bag. He grinned in anticipation and opened the locker.

Bingo!

This locker was filled to the brim and packed tightly with brightly wrapped packets that he knew were chocolate. He stuffed all the chocolate into his waiting garbage bag, its black opening resembling the gaping of a big black monster.

It almost seemed to predict to Bunta as he put the chocolates into the garbage bag what his ending would be. With that ominous thought, the garbage bag closed its mouth and Bunta smiled happily.

"The next stop would be my desk!" He thought to himself and clutching his bags of chocolate alongside with his empty school bag, he made his way to his classroom.

It was covered with boxes of chocolate, all beautifully decorated. Bunta almost dislocated his jaws from smiling too much.

During the day, girls of different years, from the junior section, the senior section to the university section, they were making their way to hand their beautifully wrapped chocolate to Bunta. He received them all with cute grins, happy smiles and winks.

After school, practice was cancelled because there were simply too many girls hanging around. There were even girls from different schools nearby giving their chocolates to Bunta. He had built up a favorable reputation for being most appreciative of Valentine's Day's gifts, in other words, chocolate.

Girls who would normally keep their distance would use that special day to tell him their admiration with chocolate which they knew would definitely be accepted even if he would not become their boyfriend. It was still very pleasant for these girls to be able to tell him of their love so the chocolate kept rolling in.

That day he had received so much chocolate that he used up all his garbage bags – thirteen in total.

That was a fair amount of chocolate indeed, considering the size of garbage bags. What do Bunta do with all those chocolates?

"Bunta, it's dinner time!"

"I'm not having dinner, Mum!"

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In the middle of the night, the Marui family was awakened by a loud crash from Bunta's room. His parents rushed into the room and switched on the light. They found that Bunta had rolled off the bed and was rolling around on the floor, clutching his tummy, moaning under his breath.

They immediately took him to the hospital and on the way, they thought they heard him mumble, "I'm never touching chocolate again, ouch… my tummy, I feel sick…"

The next day, the regulars were looking for Bunta when one of his classmates ran up and said, "Bunta-kun's in hospital. Apparently he ate all the chocolate he received yesterday all in one go. They had to take him to the emergency room in the middle of the night."

The regulars did not look overly surprised; Jackal said, "He never learns, does he? That happened last year, didn't it? And the year before that as well."

Yanagi added, "He'll probably do it again next year in university." And no one argued with him about that.

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Kuwahara Jackal is what everyone calls Mr. Nice Guy. He is patient with the younger ones; he is friendly with his peers; he is respectful to his elders. He is liked by all for his steadiness of character and open-minded behavior.

In fact, it will not be too far off the mark if one says that he is the most popular of all the Rikkai regulars.

He woke up bright and early on Valentine's Day, not realizing it was Valentine's Day. He did his usual routine of brushing his teeth, washing his face, etc, etc.

When he was jogging to school, he noticed something strange. There seemed to be more girls than usual taking this route to school. They were all whispering behind their hands and giggling. He had a sense of foreboding.

When he reached the lockers at the entrance inside the school building, he stopped and was about to change his shoes when a gaggle of chattering girls crowded around him. They were stuffing packets of some sort into his arms and pockets and whatever space on him that they could find.

Then just as sudden, they all dispersed. Jackal was left sitting amidst a pile of brightly wrapped packets of what he guessed to be chocolate. He now realized that it was Valentine's Day and he was not happy.

When he finally made his way to his classroom, he had a huge carton box in his arms. One of the school janitors took pity on him and his pile of chocolates and found him the giant box so he could take them home.

Jackal half wished that he did not have the box, then there would be an excuse not to accept any more chocolate but unfortunately, there was still plenty of room in the box for more to go in.

During break and lunchtime, he was bombarded by girls with thanks for his usual help with this and that. These were the better part of the people giving him chocolates. The part that frightened him was the ones who came up to him while he was hiding in the men's toilet, taking a breather from all the chittering and chattering and chocolate-receiving.

As I said, there were some rather shy ones who took their chocolate and were able to make their way into the men's toilet to bravely show their love on what was traditionally a girls' day. Yes, the boys who felt that although their love may not be reciprocated, Jackal would still accept their chocolate and not laugh at them.

Jackal found it somewhat scary that he was receiving chocolate from boys but Mr. Nice Guy did not have it in him to refuse them, so accepted them he did.

By the end of the day, his box was full to the brim with chocolate from both sexes and his arms were laden with bags of various sizes that people had given, also filled with chocolates.

He was not particularly fond of chocolate but he was a sincere person and to throw all the chocolate he received was something he could not bring himself to do. In the end, he would first take down all the names that he could find on the packets or cards. That was so he could return a gift of some sort to people who had given him chocolates on the 14th March, White's Day the Japanese call it.

After that, he would sit in his room and stare at the piles of chocolate, pondering on what he could do with them. He could not bring himself to eat any but was also unable to throw them away. Jackal would just there and think until it was dinner time and then he would return to his room and think some more until he felt tired.

The next day, after he went to school, he was prepared to return to room later and think some more on this most difficult of problems. His seriousness and sincerity was rewarded.

When he got home that day, he went to his room, dreading seeing all the chocolate there. He opened the door and stared. All the chocolate was gone. He was so relieved that he gave a loud shout of joy.

"What are you going on about, Jackal?" His mother asked, having heard him.

Jackal smiled and answered, "Nothing."

His mother looked skeptical and said, "Well, as long as you say so. By the way, next time, don't keep so much chocolate in your room, it breeds cockroaches. I've thrown out the lot."

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End file.
